During the processing of wood for the manufacture of veneer, logs to be processed are typically surfaced, converted into flitches by splitting them lengthwise into halves, thirds, quarters, or the like, hereinafter sometimes flitches, and further shaping. The flitches are then steeped in hot water which prepares them for slicing. The soaking aids the slicing process. After slicing of the flitch into sheets of veneer, the sheets of veneer are typically passed through a dryer to remove moisture from the sliced veneer.
A typical drying operation includes a pass of several tens to several hundreds of feet on a conveyor through a dryer which is maintained at a temperature of a few hundred degrees to remove as much of the excess moisture as it is prudent to remove from the typically relatively thin (on the order of several tens of thousandths of an inch) sheets of veneer. After passing through the dryer, the sheets are borne off the conveyor at the exit end of the dryer at an offbearers' station.
Care is usually taken to package all the veneer that has been cut from a flitch together. That is, the veneer is reassembled into a stack of all the usable sheets obtained from the original flitch. Some unusable sheets, such as sheets damaged in processing, sheets that were not large enough, and the like, are discarded. The process of offbearing and stacking requires some attention on the part of the offbearers who unload the sheets of veneer from the conveyor and stack them, care on the offbearers' part not to get sheets from one flitch mixed with sheets from another flitch, and so on. The sheets come off the dryer conveyor at a relatively high frequency in a typical drying operation. It is not unusual for offbearers to be presented a sheet every second or so for stacking. Anything that can be done to ease the fairly steady, fairly brisk pace of activity at the offbearers' station has the potential to reduce mishandling and any consequent damage and stacking errors in the offbearing and stacking process, and thereby increase the overall yield of the process.
The disclosures of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,062,218; 5,150,746; 5,979,524; 6,102,090; 6,474,379 and WO 03/070440 are hereby incorporated herein by reference. This listing is not intended to be a representation that a complete search of all relevant art has been made, or that no more pertinent art than that listed exists, or that the listed art is material to patentability. Nor should any such representation be inferred.